Truth is the beginning of wisdom…

Quotes To Ponder

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse [money, bounty, assistance, gifts] from the public treasury.
- Alexis de Tocqueville

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
- Alexander Frazer Tytler

Archive for July 7th, 2009

Christian legal group battles FDA over ‘morning after’ pill

I thought it was the FDA who was suppose to be the “safety monitors” when it came to drugs, yet the court is going to bully the FDA for the agenda of pro-abortion political activist groups over the safety of our young people?

The Alliance Defense Fund is seeking permission to intervene in a court decision ordering the Food and Drug Administration to sell the “Plan B” pill to minors.

The Plan B pill, otherwise known as the “morning-after pill,” is a very strong dose the same hormones used in oral contraceptive pills. Some doctors believe it could cause an abortion to an expectant mother. Matt Bowman is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.

“This is a case where pro-abortion activist groups have put their political agenda over the health of minors by attempting to force a court to expose them to a troubling drug,” he contends. Bowman says there is no research on what potential medical problem the Plan B pill might cause for a minor. He adds that most minors who will be given the pill will happen without parental knowledge.

“We’re representing thousands of medical personnel to get involved in this lawsuit because they’re concerned that the court’s order will result in both parents and doctors being left out of the loop in the care of these children who are seeking these powerful drugs,” he adds.

The health and well-being of children should be more important than the political agenda of pro-abortion activist groups, Bowman concludes. This is not the courts business … twisting arms and taking authority over those who have the legal authority. What the court is doing here is really illegal.

Planet Earth is actually in a cooling cycle … except around Washington where the hot air of a fake crises so Gore and his “the sky is falling” cronies who stand to make huge profits are heating up the rhetoric. All this, of course, on the backs of Americans in the form of MORE TAXES after the many promises of “no new taxes” from Obama.

In the last week of June, the House of Representatives passed a bill intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050.

The politics of what used to be called “global warming,” and now labeled “climate change,” isn’t limited to Capitol Hill. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal tells us, at the same time that the House was debating its bill, other countries were having second thoughts about their already enacted measures.

The Polish Academy of Sciences, for one, has publicly challenged the science behind man-made global warming. And only 11% of Czech citizens believe that human activity contributes to the measured rise in temperatures. Even New Zealand, rightly regarded as an ecological wonderland, suspended its emissions-reduction program.

Then there’s Australia. Earlier this year, the government submitted its proposal to limit CO2 emissions. Given the potential costs and the prospect of, as some Australian commentators put it, “carbon cops” knocking on people’s doors, Australian senator Steve Fielding asked the obvious question: Is this necessary?

Fielding, an engineer, was concerned that the government had accepted “one scientific explanation for climate change at face value” without looking at all the data … the scientific data and scientists that didn’t agree with what has been stated. Just like our EPA and government has done.

So he examined the science himself, including asking the Obama administration to address his concerns about the science. While the administration didn’t respond to his request, what Fielding learned persuaded him not to support the proposal. He realized that those in the EPA and others would risk job losses for not following the party line.

And Fielding is far from alone. As the Journal put it, “The number of [global warming] skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling.”

Even if some of the “green science” were convincing, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the approach being debated in Congress. Columnist David Brooks spoke for many when he called the bill “a morass of corporate giveaways.” No one knows what effect it will have on CO2 emissions. A similar European effort failed and actually was followed by a rise in emissions.

Then there’s the elephant in the room: China. China is building two coal-fired power plants every week. It’s estimated that, within 20 years, China’s CO2 emissions will be equal to the entire world’s today. Other developing countries are following China’s lead. Even the European Union is increasing its use of coal.

As any one of these alone would overwhelm American reductions, together they make the House vote seem almost perverse. A massive transfer of wealth from ordinary Americans to favored industries in furtherance of a policy that won’t work in response to a “crisis” whose scientific basis is far from proven. What am I missing here?

Would-be technocrats whose goal is to manage and shape our society are working hand in hand with those who would profit from their efforts. They insist that the global warming debate is “over” and compare those who disagree, or even ask questions, to Holocaust deniers.

Outrageous? Sure. Surprising? Not really look who is in office. What do they do when their argument is unconvincing … they take away more of your freedoms … because they have the power to do so!

The White House sure likes to put on a show. Fresh off its joint stage production with ABC News, the Obama administration broadcast another healthcare propaganda play last week under the guise of a citizen “town hall.”

Chicago consigliere and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett managed the floor and human props for Obama. In a telling moment as the event kicked off, she protested a wee bit much: “I want to emphasize that the president has not seen the questions ahead of time.” The audience responded with polite laughter.

But the denials of pre-planning and stacked decks deserve nothing but derisive mockery. Obama’s town hall was filled with backroom players and a supporting cast of socialized medicine activists and ideologues. One of the three lucky audience members whom Obama chose for questioning was Jason Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum works for the Washington, DC-based Health Care for America Now (HCAN). That’s the same K Street Astroturf outfit I reported on last week – the one with a $40 million budget to lobby for government-run healthcare. The one inextricably linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros.

Let’s look at who else miraculously drew a golden ticket. Another one of the three softball-tossing citizen questioners at the White House forum identified herself as a member of the Service Employees International Union. That’s the same SEIU whose president, Andy Stern, boasted of spending nearly $61 million in members’ dues to elect Barack Obama. It’s the same union that produced Patrick Gaspard, former SEIU healthcare lobbyist and now White House director of the Office of Political Affairs.

But the Obama healthcare town hall’s climactic moment came when the consoler in chief plucked Debby Smith from the crowd to tell her personal healthcare horror story. She choked back tears as she talked of her battle with kidney cancer, her joblessness, and her lack of insurance. Obama hugged the trembling woman and dubbed her “Exhibit A” for his massive entitlement program.

Debby Smith, however, is no ordinary patient. While she may be “unemployed,” she has been rather busy working for the Obama campaign – as a volunteer for Organizing for America. It’s the old Obama for Change political machine now housed under the Democratic National Committee. Smith has also identified herself as a worker for the Virginia Organizing Project, which has been coordinating lobbying trips and healthcare forums with HCAN. Yes, that same HCAN.

In December, Smith moderated “a community discussion on healthcare issues” in Appalachia, VA, and told her local paper that the meeting “would be reported back to former Sen. Tom Daschle, who has been directed by President-elect Barack Obama to form a committee to report on healthcare issues.”

Daschle may be out of the spotlight since his Health and Human Services Cabinet-nomination fiasco. But he is in constant contact with Team Obama. As he told The Associated Press earlier this week in a media meeting on healthcare reform, “We interact with them daily.” No doubt.

Veteran liberal journalist Helen Thomas earned some accolades for challenging the tightly controlled White House events. But where was she back in March, when Team Obama pulled the same stunt? At a healthcare event in the East Room, the questioners included an Obama donor, a Democratic National Committee member, a former Democratic candidate for the Virginia statehouse who had publicly endorsed Obama and a member of the SEIU. Yes, that SEIU.

The growing irritation of the once-smitten Beltway media is better late than never, I suppose. But one wonders what took so long for the sedatives to wear off the watchdogs. Team Obama has screamed “kabuki” from day one.

When color trumps Christianity

Star Parker – Syndicated Columnist – 7/6/2009 7:20:00 AM

President Obama hosted a reception at the White House celebrating LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Pride month. Black Christians should take note and learn a few things about our black president.

As they say, we are what we do.

It tells us something that Mr. Obama had no time to host an event for the National Day of Prayer. Nor did he have time to accept the invitation to convey greetings and a few remarks to the couple hundred thousand who came to Washington, as they do every January, for the March for Life.

However, the LGBT Pride event did make it onto the president’s busy schedule.

Here are parts of his remarks I think noteworthy for black Christians:

First, we now know that Mr. Obama buys into reasoning equating the homosexual political movement to the black civil rights movement: “… it’s not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.”

Perhaps Obama can extend some of his famous empathy to a black Christian woman, Crystal Dixon, who lost her University of Toledo job for writing a column in her local paper challenging this premise. Dixon was fired for being uppity enough to write “… I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims’ … I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman.”

Considering our president’s priorities, I recall a song popular during the civil rights movement: “Which Side Are You On?”

Second, Obama sees the black community as being a little slow on the uptake to grasp that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are okay. There still are those, according to him, “who don’t yet fully embrace their gay brothers and sisters …” He deals with this, he said, by talking about it in front of “unlikely audiences,” such as, “in front of African American church members.”

Maybe a lot of us black folks, still readin’ our Bibles, just haven’t had enough of that Harvard learnin’.

And, third, Obama talked about HIV/AIDS but didn’t bother to mention that it’s overwhelmingly blacks that this scourge is killing.

Why would our black president discuss HIV/AIDS and not mention that although blacks represent 12% of our population, they account for 50% of HIV/AIDS cases and half of HIV-related deaths? Or that the incidence of HIV/AIDS infection per every 100,000 people is nine times higher among blacks than whites?

Of course, it would have been bad form for Obama to sour the punch bowl at the LBGT Pride month festivities by mentioning the disproportionate toll this lifestyle takes on blacks.

Blacks, of course, made the difference in getting Proposition 8 passed in California, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. They then switched over and voted for Obama.

Obama has said he opposes same-sex marriage. Can this really be so? He said at the White House event that he’s called for Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA is the main obstacle to nationalizing legalization of same-sex marriage.

Black Christians have a lot of soul searching to do. We know the pain of black history. But we also must retain clarity that these many injustices were the result of race and color trumping Christian principles.

How can black Christians do this themselves? How can black Christians allow race and color to trump Christian principles in driving their support for a leader?

Particularly as sexually transmitted diseases kill our people, when a third of all abortions are black babies, and the only hope for future black prosperity is restoration of the black family?

A European filmmaker is warning the U.S. about the disastrous cost of cap and trade.

The U.S. House last week passed the Waxman-Markey Energy Bill, otherwise known as “cap and trade.” This legislation seeks to limit the emission of carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide that the EPA is trying to control but alas have a scandal in that area as they try to hide conflicting reports so that only the Democrat politically approved version gets through.

Opponents of the measure argued that implementation of cap and trade would destroy the American economy and dramatically increase energy costs for the average American – something then-presidential candidate Barack Obama stated clearly while on the campaign trail in late 2008.

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad – because I’m capping green house gases..,.” Obama said.This, is good for the economy, people and jobs?

Documentary film producer and director Ann McElhinney is perplexed at the recent passage of cap and trade. Her latest film, Not Evil Just Wrong, takes an in-depth look at how environmental policy can do more harm than good. She sees some irony in the effect of the Kyoto Protocol – an international environmental treaty the U.S. has symbolically signed but never ratified.

“Countries in Europe that signed up to Kyoto, which is our equivalent of this cap and trade, …have seen a loss in jobs – and funny enough they’ve lost jobs to America,” she observes, “because they can’t compete, because it immediately affects how much electricity costs to people.”So now we are going to push jobs away?

And utility costs, she contends, are a particularly sensitive issue to people. “It’s sensitive to people on low incomes, but it’s a very sensitive issue for industries that are trying to make a profit and that can only succeed in a very competitive world, that can only succeed if they can keep their energy prices low,” McElhinney explains. “So for Europe, [cap and trade] has been a total disaster.”

The June jobs report shows the president’s economic “stimulus” package is not producing the quick results the Obama administration promised Americans.

Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate rose to a 26 year high of 9.5%. The Heritage Foundation, says the Obama administration has failed to deliver on its vow to create new jobs for Americans.

“You know, we heard buzz words like ‘shovel-ready construction projects’ – and [now we can] look at the job numbers,” says Hederman. “We see that construction has continued to shed jobs. We know that 5% of all architects have lost their jobs in 2009 alone because there is not enough construction planning coming forward.”

The stimulus bill was a huge amount of money that is being poorly spent, poorly targeted, and is not having the effect that was promised to us.

Back in February, the director of President Obama’s National Economic Council, Larry Summers, promised the effects of the stimulus would “begin almost immediately.” In addition, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said Americans would see stimulus benefits in “weeks to months,” and Christina Romer, chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, predicted “we will start adding jobs, rather than losing them, at more than half a million a month.”

It is easy to see why the stimulus has been ineffective.The majority of provisions in the package were typical government pork spending – members doing favors for their districts back home. Most of these aren’t focused on happening quick … and in most cases were far from necessities.

Hederman observes, “We’ve taken money from the private sector to have to pay for the stimulus package – so it is not really going to have a big effect.”